We own 3 summer weeks at the Briarwood Resort on Cape Cod in Falmouth, Massachusetts. It was originally built to be full year condos. When that plan failed, they were successfully marketed as timeshare units. I believe that happened over 20 years ago, long before we bought our weeks via resale through the good 'ole Holiday Group (R.I.P.).
The resort President, Manager, and a dedicated HOA have invested years of "blood, sweat, and tears" trying to keep the maintenance fees reasonable, while keeping the resort afloat. It's a daunting task because most of the people who were suckered into purchasing the frigid "dead of winter" weeks, have defaulted and/or disappeared, or died, or had no assets to garnishee.
Along the way some of the prime fixed-deeded summer weeks were re-sold with 3 bonus winter weeks (December-mid-March, I believe). Owners of these extra bonus nights would call in the Fall and reserve their 3 nights on a first come basis. Many did not even use any of the nights. We would offer our 9 bonus nights for free to other owners. And some TUG members took advantage of this offer, especially during the Christmas holidays and President's week.
The cost of keeping the resort open all year was expensive, but owners balked about raising the maintenance fees.
Management proposed that two of the buildings be removed from the timeshare program and be sold as privately owned, all year round condos, with the monthly carrying charges collected from the condo owners being added to the resort maintenance fees account (or something like that).
And Management further proposed that the timeshare part of the resort be closed down completely from, I think, December to mid-May, thus saving quite a bit of money on utility bills, staff salaries and benefits, grounds maintenance (think lots of snow!), and wear and tear, etc...
It took about 10 years before they could get the requisite number of owners (80% I think) to agree to this plan. Many owners could not be found. Many owners in good standing did not want to lose their 3 bonus winter nights (per week owned). When they were eventually promised 3 extra prime summer bonus weeks as a replacement, enough agreed to vote for the plan.
However, the mainteance fees for all owners had to be raised by $100.. It is now $750. which IMHO is still very reasonable since these are two story town home units with 2 or 3 bedrooms, a large kitchen and livingroom, 2 bathrooms, and a private fenced-in back yard with a picnic table and a bbq grill. On the spacious, well mainured grounds, there is an outdoor swimming pool open 24/7, sauna, kid's clubhouse, tennis courts, playground, etc...
Resorts like this that do not have the ability to attract off-season paying owners or renters, may keep the maintenance fees from spireling out of control by closing down for part of the year.
